We Are Thankful For Such Frankness

Written:Written in the summer of 1915Published:First published in 1931 in Lenin Miscellany XVII.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[197[4]],

      Moscow,Volume 21,

      pages370-371.Translated:Transcription\Markup:D. WaltersandR. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2003

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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“Theinane idea of the necessity of forming an
    Interna-tional of ‘internationalist Social-Democrats’ .., [of]
    oppo-sition elements picked at random from all the socialist parties
    .... The International can be restored only from the same elements it has
    consisted of till now .... A restored International will not be the
    ‘third’ in succession, as is desired by a handful of sectarians
    and experts in the business of arranging splits, but the selfsame Second
    International, which has not died, but has been temporarily paralysed by a
    world disaster....”

Thisis what Mr. V. Kosovsky writes in issue No. 8 of the Bund’sInformation Bulletin.We are deeply thankful for the frankness
    shown by this Bundist, who is not the brightest of the lot. This is not the
    first time he has de-fended opportunism with an outspokenness that must be
    displeasing to the Bund’s diplomatists. This time again, he will be
    helping the struggle against opportunism, by revealing to the workers how
    hopelessly far the Bund stands from proletarian socialism. Mr. V. Kosovsky
    does not see the link between opportunism and social-chauvinism. To discern
    that link, one must be able to ask oneself the follow-ing questions: what
    are the fundamental ideas in the two currents? How has opportunism developed
    in Europe during the last few decades? What is the attitude towards
    social-chauvinism revealed by the opportunist and the revolutionary wing
    in,a number of European countries, as, for instance, in Russia, Germany,
    Belgium, France, Britain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, and
    Bulgaria?

HasMr. V. Kosovsky given thought to this? If he at-tempted to reply to
    at least the first question, he would soon see his mistake.

Incidentally,,in issue No. 7 of theInformation BulletinMr. V. Kosovsky has displayed a Germanophile chauvinism, for, while accusing
    the French Social-Democrats, he defends the German Social-Democrats’
    voting for war credits. A certain W. (writing in issue No. 8, pp. 11-12)
    defends Mr. V. Kosovsky against the accusation of chau-vinism, asserting
    that there can be no Gerrnanophile chau-vinism in an organisation that
    operates in Russia. Perhaps Mr. V. Kosovsky will explain to Mr. W. why it is
    that a Ukrainian or a Polish bourgeois in Russia, a Danish or an Alsatian
    bourgeois in France, or an Irish bourgeois in Britain often reveals a
    chauvinism hostile to the nations that oppress them.